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GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 28, ISSUE 1 36
"They would stop listening, and DeMo and I would just
keep right on going, laughing all the way. We laughed a
lot over the years."
It wasn't only the Browns that were interested in DeM-
oss. Griese's Dolphins and other college jobs were there
for the taking. Yet, DeMoss' loyalty of serving two de-
cades as an assistant was rewarded when he was named
the head man when Jack Mollenkopf retired.
His three-year head coaching stint wasn't as success-
ful as DeMoss would have liked, posting a 13-18 record.
It proved to be an adjustment for DeMoss, and the experi-
ence wasn't helped by close losses and key injuries limit-
ing the Boilermakers' progress.
"If we could find a way to lose a game, we did," said
Rich Ostriker, a starting guard during DeMoss' reign from
1970-72. "I think he found there was a learning curve to
being the head coach, but he proved in our senior year
that he could adapt."
DeMoss had installed the wishbone in hopes of utiliz-
ing his two eventual first-round NFL picks in his back-
field, Otis Armstrong and Darryl Stingley. It failed out of
the gate, as the Boilermakers, with four other NFL first-
round picks in its senior class (the only
time in school history Purdue has had
that many at one time) started out 0-3.
"That was tough," Ostriker said. "But
I remember when he called us togeth-
er and said he was going to change our
offense back to a more traditional two-
back set. You have to give him credit, he
changed and we started to win."
The Boilermakers finished the season
with six victories in eight games and had
Armstrong not slipped on the Michigan
Stadium Astroturf on the way to a 9-6 loss
to No. 3 Michigan, Purdue could have
made its way to the Rose Bowl.
"We were as good as anyone in the
country," Ostriker said. "I always appreci-
ated the fact that he wanted us to win for
the seniors and that was in his thought
process when he changed offenses in
mid-stream that year. Bob was a good
man."
But loyalty also played a role in why
DeMoss decided to hang it up after the '72 season. He was
loyal to wife Janet and three children and decided it would be
best if he contributed to Purdue as an athletic administrator.
It was a position he held for another 21 years before his re-
tirement in 1993.
He continued to live modestly, residing in the same house
on Knox Drive in West Lafayette for the last six decades of
his life. Simple pleasures treated DeMoss kindly.
And there was time for life after football. DeMoss loved
to fish and golf and equally loved to always know what his
former players were doing on and off the field. He was leg-
endary any time the Purdue athletic department had a golf
event, as he was a capable golfer, but also was often the life
of the party.
"We talked several times a year," Phipps said. "I will really
miss that."
DeMoss' secret to life was revealed to those closest to him.
"'Do the best you can and have a short memory,'" Samu-
els said. "That was Bob's calling card."
Simple, but effective. That was vintage DeMoss.
j